MNR tuning in trout; Wildlife officials using radio transmitters to track spawning fish

[Spiel]

MNR tuning in trout; Wildlife officials using radio transmitters to track spawning fish

 

 

DOUG EDGAR / owensoundsuntimes.com

 

About 30 rainbow trout are now swimming up the Saugeen River with tiny radios in their bellies.

 

Local Ministry of Natural Resources officials will soon be tracking them from a helicopter to see where they end up spawning.

 

"These fish will steer us to where we have to go and focus our efforts," said Jody Scheifley, with the Owen Sound MNR office.

 

He, fellow fish and wildlife technician Luke Weber and MNR biologist Andy McKee were busy Thursday implanting the radios - about the size of the first two sections of a man's pinky finger - in the body cavities of rainbow that Ontario Steelheaders and Kitchener-Waterloo-based Golden Triangle Salmon and Steelheaders club members intercepted at Denny's Dam fish ladder.

 

The project is intended to give fisheries managers a better idea where rainbow trout, or steelhead, from Lake Huron spawn in the Saugeen River and tributaries. It will also tell MNR officials how well fishways upstream at dams at Walkerton and Maple Hill work.

 

"Most of the good water is above those two dams," Scheifley said.

 

Perhaps more importantly, he said, the project will indicate which areas should be protected and rehabilitated.

 

Denny's Dam, at Southampton, is intended to stop the invasive and parasitic sea lamprey from migrating up the Saugeen River to spawn. There is a fish ladder at the south end of the dam, where the steelheaders intercepted 92 rainbow that were candidates for the research project Thursday. They use the same facility to collect eggs for hatcheries and to catch fish that are transported upstream and released.

 

The three MNR staffers had a small fish field hospital set up in a shelter at the dam. The fish, which had to be at least five pounds to take the transmitter, were put in a tub with anesthetic in the water, then measured. McKee then made a small incision in the fish's belly, stuffed the 30-day transmitter in and sewed the fish up with two quick stitches.

 

The fish were held in another tub for awhile to make sure they would recover before they were released in a quiet area a little upstream of the dam.

 

Each fish also received a yellow marker tag near its dorsal fin, which Scheifley said should be a backup to track the fish. He asked that anyone who catches one of the marked fish call the MNR with the tag information and the date and time the fish was caught.

 

McKee, who implanted the same type of transmitters in some muskellunge in the Saugeen a few years ago, said the fish should be able to spawn normally and recover from their surgery.

 

The next step in the project, which is funded with help from the MNR, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Bruce Resource Stewardship Network and the Sydenham Conservation Foundation, is to use an MNR helicopter to track the fish, each of which will transmit its own code.

 

"Hopefully next Friday we'll start," said Scheifley. "We'll do several flights over a two-week period."